Saturday, April 3, 2010

Alright ladies & gents, I missed last week - my bad. I was on my Wilderness First Responder course, something I highly recommend to all of you if you don't have it already. I firmly believe it is one of the most responsible things you can do for your climbing partners. Anyway, while slacking off in the middle of that course (I think I missed the part on emergency tracheotomies) I found this video on Petzl's website. Twenty-five minutes of High Definition video of climbing in Ben Nevis. Totally worth it.

Man, that video had everything for me. Awesome climbing on varying terrain, funny commentary, and beautiful videography. This next clip has none of the above, except perhaps unintentional hilarity. This video leaves me asking so many questions... Why does MacGyver free solo with a full body harness on? What was the need for the hammer/ice ax combo? What is the point of the tag line he takes off once he gets to the top of the cliff? Did Dean Potter watch this as a kid and plagiarize MacGyver's idea of "freeBASEing?" How does he open his parachute when he jumps off the cliff on the "bottom" of the guy he grabs onto? What stunt-man has such low self-esteem to allow himself to be part of this fiasco!?

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